1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to an automatic accompaniment device for an electronic musical instrument, such as an auto-arpeggio device and particularly to an accompaniment pattern-selecting system for use in such an automatic accompaniment device.
2. Prior Art
In conventional automatic accompaniment devices such as an auto-arpeggio device, operable members such as switches are fixedly assigned respective accompaniment patterns and tone colors. More specifically, when a certain operable member is operated, the accompaniment pattern and tone color (for example, tone color of a piano) corresponding to the operated member are selected, so that the automatic accompaniment is performed in the selected pattern and tone color.
Generally, the conventional automatic accompaniment device of the type described only has such selectable accompaniment patterns and tone colors corresponding in number to the operable members, and therefore there have been occasions when the player of the electronic musical instrument selects such accompaniment pattern and tone color that are not well suited for the music the player is going to play.
It can be considered that the number of the operable members is increased so that the accompaniment patterns and tone colors have a wider variety. However, this is undesirable since the increased number of the operable members consume more space, which increases the overall size of the musical instrument, and besides the operation of selecting of the operable members becomes cumbersome.